It is neither about Katica nor the SPO

Erol Rizaov

Macedonia faces yet another division among the public about an imposed dilemma: who is in favor of the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office and Katica Janeva, and who is in favor of the new law on Public Prosecution according to a party form, legalized by a political agreement. Simply put it means – who is in favor of the untouchable senior functionaries in the politics, the power, and the centers of power finally facing justice, and who is for continuing the unhindered robbery of the citizens and the country. Or to put it even simpler – who is for the freedom and impunity of the criminals, and who is for them to end up in prison and confiscate their stolen property. If this is the case, there will be no divisions and the need for hundreds of pages of incomprehensible paragraphs and complex manipulations, confusing wordplays to water down the successful start of the functioning of the judiciary and the rule of law with the existing laws.

The vast majority of honest citizens are exposed to strong political propaganda as if it were a cataclysm rather than a salvage of the mafia that has been running the country for more than a decade. The party’s struggle for the rule of law has become the best shelter for organized crime, corruption, human rights and freedoms, electoral fraud, and demolition of the socio-economic order. The noise rising on all sides about the rule of law is deafening and blinding. Macedonia is the country with the loudest commitment to respect the laws, and with the least prisoners of the political leadership who are responsible for organized crime, corruption and other serious crimes. All suspects seek justice, but the kind they will determine themselves, and not the court. All convicted and accused officials are innocent victims of political persecution.

Only in this kind of fog, raised under blue skies with a kettle of stew in the Assembly served to the public can conceal the real intention of a new amnesty of crime and criminals, much worse than the one that provided two-thirds votes to accept constitutional changes to pass the Prespa Agreement. If it was the swallowing of the toad to crush the European future and the faster development of the country and consciously sacrificing by choosing the lesser evil, what is happening today is the legalization of the greater evil and the stifling of what was left of the legal order.

It is not a matter of either the SPO or Katica Janeva to destroy what has been accomplished with great sacrifices in order to establish a legal system without which Macedonia will lose its chances it has acquired with the Prespa Agreement. and with the evidently better functioning of the judiciary.
The public appearance of the Special Prosecutors and judge Dobrila Kacarska and her precise explanations for the verdicts on the events of April 27, 2017 and those ongoing trials, as well as the latest investigations by former officials suspected of corruption clearly show that the first victories of justice over politics triggered panic in party ranks. If the proponents of the rule of law by the government and the opposition wanted to give strong support for the functioning of the rule of law equally for all, then they would choose the right order of the proceedings.

First, VMRO-DPMNE and Hristijan Mickoski would have apologized to the public for the crimes and the stealing committed in the period of Gruevism. They would have excluded the honorary president, and his closest associates and accomplices in the grave crimes, from the party. By doing so, they would have given the freedom to the SPO and the regular prosecutor’s office and the courts to act smoothly according to the laws. In that case, their commitment to increase the competencies of the SPO and the primary public prosecutor’s office to fight crime in the high ranks and the current government would be welcomed with great public approval and would indicate a victory for the rule of law. It would have been the beginning of the real political competition that will more successfully implement the reforms of the Brussels chapters and who will soon bring Macedonia into NATO and the EU. Instead, they demanded a general amnesty for all criminals and abuse of power and a punishment for the signatories of the Prespa Agreement, a crucial mistake and a heavy defeat not only of the party.

Bargaining with the European future in exchange for the freedom of the perpetrators of crime and the organizers of the coup attempt on the so-called “bloody Thursday” took VMRO-DPMNE to the wrong side of history. The adoption of constitutional amendments and the Prespa Agreement with the participation of all parliamentary political parties will open the doors to both Europe and the state of law with equal merit to all citizens and relevant political parties. Attempts to shift sins to those who have opened the doors to Parliament for the incursion of organized units to obstruct the election of a parliament Speaker and the constitution of the Assembly are manipulative and naive, although this does not diminish their responsibility. There are no doors that cannot be opened if the organizers of the incursion in the Assembly are Nikola Gruevski, the then most powerful man in the country, police officials, members of the secret police, parliament speaker and senior party officials of VMRO-DPMNE.

The exit from the latest Macedonian campus is not on 120 or 200 or 500 pages amendments to the law on public prosecution and in the degradation of the SPO and the change of Katica Janeva. The solution is very simple if there is a desire for the rule of law, as everyone is constantly repeating hundreds of times a day. These are the world’s most vigorous measures against all participants who grossly undermine the rule of law and impede its succession. This implies a severe punishment for the slightest attempts to prevent the smooth operation of all instances of the justice system, equal conditions for their independence and professional work, whether it is the regular Public Prosecutor’s Office, or the SPO, for all courts and judges. Transparency of court proceedings and gaining public confidence through a fair trial is the most powerful weapon for recognition that is truly a rule of law and which is to legitimize crime with approval from politics.